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 Posted - March 24 2014 : 5:15:53 PM
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I had bought a bag full of HO train junk pieces at flea market/antique store a while back. Among the parts was an old riveted steel caboose shell with a cupola near the end - not sure if it was an AHM or an Athearn. There was also an AHM caboose base - looks like what's on some of my wide-vision cabooses with the snap-in trucks with truck-mounted couplers.
I had always wanted to try making a transfer caboose, so I thought I'd see what I could come up with. Would have preferred using a bay-window shell, but this is what I had! I cut a slice out of the caboose shell with a razor saw - more or less the part where the cupola sat - and then glued the two ends back together, giving me a shortened body that would allow for two 'porches' on either end. I also cut off the roof overhangs.
Because the bolsters on the caboose chassis were so big that it made the caboose sit very high off the rails, I added some strips of styrene on each side to cover the gap. I also added smaller strips of styrene on top around the edges, to be a framework and support the floor. For this I used sheet styrene that has the 'siding' surface, so it looks like wood flooring planks. I used the same type of sheet styrene - only thicker - to cut the roof walks from.
The ladders, brake wheel assemblies and smoke jack are from my parts box, as are the railings, which were originally off an old Bachmann DD40AX.
I found some snap-in trucks, used a MicroMark reamer on them and installed a set of Proto 2000 metal wheelsets, installed a pair of body-mounted Kadee #58 couplers, and painted everything L&N gray.
Finished up with L&N yellow on the steps, ladders and railings, and then some L&N caboose decals I had left over.
Pictured here with the type of caboose shell that I used, with the cupola slice removed.
This is a similar wide vision caboose chassis like I used. Could be Bachmann.
It's somewhat crude in a way - as I said, I would have preferred using a bay window caboose as a donor, and a thinner cross section for the floor (possibly milling down the bolsters to lower the chassis), but looking on the internet at many different pictures of transfer hacks, I found the railroads did what they could with what they had, there were hundreds of variations. I ended up with a one-of-a-kind car, much like in real life, that serves its purpose. Dig in your own parts box and try one!
http://tycodepot.com/
Edited by - JNXT 7707 on March 24 2014 5:24:58 PM
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Posted - March 24 2014 : 5:50:22 PM
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It's always fun to see what can be made of an assortment of unrelated parts. Nicely done!
Carpe Manana!
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 Posted - March 24 2014 : 7:52:07 PM
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| nice job I sees these Transfer Caboose occasionally
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Posted - March 24 2014 : 10:07:54 PM
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Nice job! And plausible too, since the Clinchfield had some cabooses of the type you started with, and both L&N and Clinchfield were part of the Family Lines System.
Glenn
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "... I drank what?"
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